You are your own Fairy Godmother - and everyone else's too...

The art of showing up

· Coaching,Purpose

So you're at work, inputting the same numbers day in and day out, you could probably do this with your eyes closed. This wasn't the plan. You wanted to make a difference, to improve people's lives. You've been playing the lottery more and more - dreaming of what you would do with the money. You love shows like The Voice - someone getting their dreams come true, they're hungry, you were hungry once. You wish someone would just show up, with a giant button and vote you into the life you deserve.

It's not that you didn't try. You tried getting jobs in various charities and fields you were interested in but they didn't work out, so you got a job to pay the bills and now you feel a bit like Cinderella waiting for her fairy godmother to arrive.

You started to learn about Spiritual practices, you've tried meditation, yoga and even drunk some horrid green concoction to detox you - only to grab 3 coffees on the way to work to get the taste of grass out of your mouth.

So you start thinking about your weekends, a friend suggests you go to a flower arranging class, you like flowers and think, sure, what the hell.

You get lost in the colours and the scents. You learn that flowers have a language all of their own and that bouquets mean different things.

You're not sure what to do with your new arrangements so you ask your boss if you can bring them to work and put them in the reception area. Soon every week you are putting your arrangements out, people walk past them everyday and you notice they smile, stop and often smell the arrangements. You make a few for charity raffles and they make quite a bit of money.

Even though you love this, you don't want to be a florist. It's a passion of yours but the reality of the day to day doesn't work for you. The office becomes a little easier and you share tips about colours and arrangements with your colleagues. It's nice. It's easier to be at work.

Unbeknown to you, a colleague has just been diagnosed with cancer, it's terminal. He's distracted and his wife is struggling to cope. He walks in to the office and sees the flowers. He stops for a moment, pink roses, just like his wife wedding bouquet, he can still remember the smell. He decides to plant a rose bush in his garden, to give his wife something to look at when he's gone...

A woman in the office becomes engaged, she's so excited that she's bought every Bridal Magazine there is, the cost of the wedding is getting out of hand, her fiancé thinks they need to reign it in, she's frustrated. Seeing the simple arrangement you did of baby's breath wrapped in silk gives her an idea...

At the end of each week the flowers get thrown away - or so you assume - turns out the receptionist has been taking them to her sick mother in a residential home. They bring so much joy...

You still think you're just some data input machine, doing your daily grind and paying your bills. The flowers make you happy but your heart is still heavy, you believe you aren't making the difference you know you were born to make....

You long to do more, bring more of your magic to work and to others... but don't you see, you already are.

You are a Fairy Godmother

I've been called 'The Fairy Godmother' by friends and colleagues because even as an office temp I made my magic known. I worked in a post room and helped a coworker come out to his parents and colleagues. Supported a grieving colleague. I spoke about my own abuse and raised money, during that time I had several coworkers come and talk to me about their own experiences or experiences of people they knew. Conversations took over where silence had once pervade. As a tutor I discussed body image, tattoos and plastic surgery with young girls who weren't comfortable discussing it with their parents. When I worked writing up policy documents in a phone shop I helped a technician who failed out of high school to go back to colleague and believe he was smart enough, he just needed to be engaged with his subject... none of those jobs were 'spiritual' but I showed up everyday, in every way and those who needed me, found me.

Get Inspired

Bringing your light into your work...

In an inspired and beautifully delivered talk, Wes Moore illustrates how you can bring your work into your job. That is, you can bring the passion you have for something into your paid employment. He gives the example of a barber so passionate about education that all the local boys know if you bring a book to his shop, you get your hair cut for free.

So how do you bring your magic to work with you?

It can often feel like you aren't doing what you are meant to, that just that lottery win, that big red button would make all the difference. But in reality you can show up everyday, wherever you are and bring your magic with you.